In general, arms and legs for an elastic doll are constructed so as to be bent, to thereby permit the doll to make a desired pose, so that it may exhibit increased reality. For this purpose, it has been conventionally considered that a core is preferably incorporated or embedded in the arms and legs. Actually, an arm or leg member which has a core incorporated or embedded therein is known in the art.
However, in such an arm having a core embedded or incorporated therein, as shown in FIG. 17, a core 40 is embedded in a molded synthetic resin material 41 for an arm as if it floats in the molding material, resulting it in failing to be integrated with the molding material 41. Thus, even when it is attempted to return the arm to an original straight pose thereof after it is bent in one direction, the core 40 inherently carries out torsional rotation in the arm, to thereby cause the arm to make a pose of being bent in an opposite direction, resulting in the arm being hard to make a desired pose. Also, the conventional core-embedded arm has another problem of causing the core 40 to be exposed at a distal end 40a thereof from a surface of the arm.
Further, during forming of the arm by molding, the core  is required to be stationarily held at a predetermined position in a molding space defined in a mold. However, when a molding material is injected into the molding space, an injection pressure of the molding material causes movement of the core in the molding space, resulting in the core being displaced or deviated from a center of the arm molded.
Conventionally, techniques of stationarily setting the core in the molding space while keeping it floating in the space are limited to a means of fixing both ends of the core on edges of the molding space or that of securely supporting an intermediate portion of the core which is arranged in the molding space by means of a support member such as a fine wire or the like. However, the former means requires to cut the core at each end of the molded article, resulting in a mark made by the cutting being left on the molded article, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 16875/1991. Thus, although the means may be employed in legs of a doll wherein there is a portion which is out of sight such as a sole of each of the feet because the portion permits the mark to be ignored, it cannot be applied to arms because it is not desired to leave the marks on fingers. The latter means causes a mark formed by drawing the support member out of the molded article after the molding to be left in the form of a hole on a surface of the molded article although the hole is small, so that the molded article is deteriorated in appearance.
In order to solve the problems, techniques of fixing only one end of the core and rendering the other end of the core free would be considered. However, in order to stationarily hold the whole core by merely fixing only one end of the core, it is required to increase a whole size of a mold for molding the arm to rigidly fix the end of the core by means of a specific jig or the like, to thereby cause the techniques to be impractical. Also, an arm of a doll relatively reduced in size such as a dress-up doll is thin, so that, as shown in FIG. 18, a bit of  movement of a core 50 during a molding operation possibly causes the core 50 to be shifted or deviated from a central position of a molded article or arm 51, so that the core may be often dangerously exposed. Therefore, the techniques are considered to be inapplicable to insert molding of a doll arm. Thus, in the prior art, a doll arm reduced in size is typically formed by slush molding. Unfortunately, slush molding causes a cavity to be formed in the arm, resulting in the arm having a touch different from that of a leg having a core embedded therein by insert molding, so that the arm gives a user an unbalanced and unnatural feeling or impression.
The present invention has been made so as to eliminate the foregoing disadvantage or problem of the prior art. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an arm for an elastic doll which is capable of substantially preventing torsional rotation of a core in the arm.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for forming an arm for an elastic doll which is capable of stably holding a core at a predetermined position in the arm during a molding operation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a mold for forming of an arm for an elastic doll, which mold is capable of stably holding a core at a predetermined position in the arm during a molding operation while being simplified in structure.